Every year, Seimas (the Lithuanian Parliament) proclaims various historical, cultural and social anniversaries to be observed in a particular year. The commemorations are meant to bring attention to significant cultural phenomena for collective recognition and identity. Seimas consulted with various historians and social leaders to determine the most relevant dates, persons and events to be remembered in 2023. The nearly 20 subjects of commemoration of past years have now been reduced to three: the 700th anniversary of Lithuania’s capital Vilnius and the letters of Gediminas, the 100th anniversary of Klaipėda Region being restored to Lithuania, and the 400th anniversary of the martyrdom of Saint Juozapatas.
Exactly 700 years ago, on January 25, 1323, the city of Vilnius was first mentioned in written sources – the Grand Duke Gediminas’ letters to Europe. He wrote about his strategy of orienting Lithuania and its capital toward Europe and its ethnopolitical, cultural and multi-denominational spirit of cooperation, rather than toward Asian despotism.
2023 is the year of Klaipėda Region because of its reincorporation into Lithuanian territory, a major geopolitical event in Lithuania’s history, very siginificant for its development as a maritime nation as well as the port of Klaipėda in the Baltic Sea region.
A Basilian monk, St. Juozapatas (Josaphat), born Ivan Kuntsevych in Ukraine in 1580, lived, worked and studied in Vilnius from the age of 13. He became an Eastern Rite Catholic in 1604, joining the Holy Trinity Monastery in Vilnius. Martyred in 1623, he was declared a saint in 1867.
Other persons to be commemorated in 2023 include the composer of the first Lithuanian opera, organist Mikas Petrauskas, author Mykolas Vaitkus, founder of the Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union Vladas Putvinskis-Pūtvis, book smuggler Felicija Bortkevičienė, Lithuanian intelligence officer and politician Marcelė Kubiliūtė, author and historian Simonas Daukantas, and poet Jurgis Baltrušaitis.
Among historic, political and cultural events remembered will be the 70th anniversary of the last mass deportations from occupied Lithuania, the 80th anniversary of the and liquidation of the Vilnius ghetto, the 90th anniversary of the Steponas Darius and Stasys Girėnas transatlantic flight, the 80th anniversary of the founding of the Supreme Committee for the Liberation of Lithuania, the 30th anniversary of the withdrawal of the occupational Soviet army, and the 70th anniversary of the US Congress Kersten Committee (to Investigate Communist Aggression and the Forced Incorporation of the Baltic States into the U.S.S.R.).
This year also marks the 700th anniversary of the name of the Lithuanian “Upper Land” region Aukštaitija, and 770th of the name of Dzūkija (Dainava).
Seimas has proposed that the government form interdepartmental commissions to coordinate programs for appropriate institutions, municipalities, communities, organizations and citizen groups to organize various commemorative events.
